Congressional Term Limits

943 Words2 Pages

Congressional terms have no limits. Controversy exists between those who think the terms should be limited and those who believe that terms should remain unlimited. The group that wants to limit the terms argues that the change will promote fresh ideas and reduce the possibility of decisions being made for self-interest. Those who oppose term limits believe that we would sacrifice both the stability and experience held by veteran politicians. They also point out that our election process allows the voter to limit terms, at their discretion. While experience and stability are important considerations, congressional terms should be limited to a maximum of two.
Change is difficult and requires strong support from the voters to start the process. Currently, the two houses of the United States Congress are not restricted as to the number of terms they may serve. Under our Constitution, members of the Senate may serve an unlimited number of six-year terms and members of the House of Representatives may serve an unrestricted number of two-year terms. Their job consists of protecting the interests of their constituents (the voters back home). They organize committees to study issues of public policy, recommend action, and pass laws. Both houses of Congress must approve a bill for it to become a law. To begin the process of restricting the years of Congressional terms, it would require recommending a bill for an amendment separately and the proposal being debated in the two houses of Congress. If the bills were passed by two-thirds of the legislators in each House of Congress, then the bills would be combined into a Joint Resolution which would be sent to each of the fifty States. The Joint Resolution would be placed upon each Sta...

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...tion we must ask ourselves is, “Why is it in the best interest of our Country to limit the number of terms our president can serve, but not in our best interest to limit the number of terms served by our Congressional representatives?”
In conclusion, Congressional representatives should be limited to serving two terms. Limiting the terms of career politicians will promote fresh ideas and reduce the possibility of decisions being made for self-interest. It is in our Country’s best interest that our legislator’s decisions are equitable and that compromises are not made to ensure their own or their parties stay in office.

Works Cited

1 http://www.democratichub.com/posts/10007/fixing-our-broken-government.aspx
2 http://restartcongress.org/revolution/founding-fathers/
3 http://ourgeneration.org/term-limits/
4 http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpco33.htm

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